Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Lucky's Smash Cake Photoshoot

Today Mr. Lucky ChemKnits is 18 months old. I cannot believe how fast the time has gone on. I can think of no better time to (finally!) share with you some pictures from his first birthday photoshoot. This is the culmination of many different knitting projects, baking experiments, practice photoshoots, photography and Photoshop classes. Let's jump back in time 6 months and see where my head was at.

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Diary of a Mother to a 364 day old. This is a lot more rambling than some of my other posts, but I'm really reflecting on this past year as I write between steps of cake decorating.

Tomorrow is his first birthday. This time a year ago I was trying to focus and keep myself calm because I was already having contractions. I woke up in the middle of the night (morning) of October 7, 2013 and knew that you wanted to come out. I just didn't know that it wouldn't happen for another 45 hours! There are so many emotions swelling through my head as I prepare Lucky's first piece of cake, his smash cake to be eaten on his first birthday. (There will be cupcakes and another smash at his first party.)

I baked the cake the night before. It took a lot of dye to get the blue that I wanted for his cake. I wanted a bright blue, not a pastel. Boy did it take a lot of dye. I wrapped it in seran wrap so it could completely cool overnight. There was enough batter to also give us two cupcakes. Good, the parents deserve to have a treat for surviving the first year of parenthood. Sometimes we would toast in the evenings for keeping our Little One (LO) alive for another day. (Celebrate what you can, right?)

Lucky always makes me smile. He can be a minx, but I love him. (Thinking of Lady and the Tramp now. This is a good song in my head to have as I'm working on his cake.)

We set up the photoshoot the night before Lucky turned one. TURNED ONE! I wanted to make sure we could spend most of his special day playing and having fun (snapping pictures, too) but with minimal set up type effort. The birthday boy woke up happy and we were ready to go!

We split his photoshoot up in to a few different sections. First, I took some test shots in his jammies and turned out to get one of my favorite photos of the day (above.) Then we took a picture of him in a white onesie with a "12 month" sticker to wrap up our picture of the day project. After a break, we changed Lucky into his hand knit outfit and started snapping pictures with his older brother, Indy.

We did get some of both boys in their hats, but Lucky was much more interested in playing with his hat than wearing it.

After Lucky's nap, it was finally time for the cake smash. I took dozen photos of the cake the night before so I wouldn't have to worry about getting too many "before" shots once we put Lucky down. Keith and I expected that Lucky would go right for the cake, knock it over and devour the sugary treat.

Well, we were a little right. Lucky went straight for his vibrant blue cake and planted his hand in the frosting... and then freaked out. The poor guy did not like the sticky mess on his hand and gave us some crocodile tears. Keith was worried that I was going to be disappointed (as I'd put so much planning into this smash cake shoot) but I was thrilled. Of course I wouldn't want my baby to be sad, but he had an honest reaction and we got some GOLDEN pictures out of it.

We got some spoons and let Lucky eat some of his cake off the the spoons. Suddenly he discovered what a wonderful treat he had, and the tears stopped and we even got some smiles! (Even if he refused to actually touch the cake again.)

Face planting on the spoon of cake. YUM!

What you don't see in these pictures are the dozens of time Lucky tried to walk off of the backdrop paper and Keith had to "reset" him in position. I was laying on the floor to get the best angle, and I would NOT have been able to take so many pictures if I were by myself.

Months before the shoot, I was so worried how this was going to come out. I was worried that I wasn't going to "get the shot" or that when I put the pictures on the computer the exposure would be way off on all of them. I only needed to make minor editing adjustments and I couldn't be more thrilled with how this came out. Thank you for joining me in this journey as I shared all of the things I did to celebrate Lucky's first birthday!

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